Friday, July 18, 2014

My husband, John Cullum, and I have been watching Al Jazeera Americanews on TV. It seems to have fewer and shorter commercials. Watching NBC or CBS with their usual four to six commercials, often a repetition of what we just saw, gets us grumbling. "I hate this."

We've enjoyed watching Al Jazeera America. When I blogged about Al Gore ("Our Almost Next President," http://bit.ly/Yjuspb,) I learned that he'd sold his "Current News" channel to the owner of Al Jazeera Arabic & English -- Gore is now completely out the picture. The owners are primarily Islamists, who have certainly expressed negative views of America.

January 2014, when Al Jazeera America was formed and Time Warner Cable included it its listings, and made it available to Americans on a local channel, there was a big hullabaloo. Articles in the New York Times, and UK Guardian said that Al Jazeera was providing subtle, and insidious anti American commentary.

Whoa -- we've have been watching it just at dinner time. Most of the newscasters are clear speaking and previously worked for BBC and American Channels. Not a word have we heard that couldn't have been broadcast on NBC or CBS.

Okay, we have watched only for a brief time. The presentation of news on Al Jazeera America is somewhat less interesting than American news which dramatizes with headlines -- sells news with titles like Scandal, Trouble, Conflict. But Al Jazeera America covered Christie, Benghazi, Republican anti-Obama debates, Putin's doings; today's news is their news -- immigration, and Gaza-Israel.

The fact is, warnings about Al Jazeera news being offensive wouldn't impress us -- it would inspire us to have a look. John and I like or dislike things based on what we feel, and what we feel is based on a lot of things that make us what we are -- cautious, liberal, curious grownups, who are not unwilling to learn something new.

So will you watch Al Jazeeera America? Why not take a look and see what you feel. We feel okay about peeking in on the island where this supposedly scary guy is reposing.

HOW I GOT HERE

I started out as a modern dancer, contemporary, but balletic. I didn't want to be a swan, or a barefoot dancer. I wanted to dance to the music that thrilled me as a child, and made me want to be a dancer.

I began writing in the truck my first husband, Mark Ryder and I bought, in order to carry our set, props, and costumes for a long one-night-stands tour -- eighty-eighty performances in eighty-eight cities.

We were performing "Romeo and Juliet" nightly, but our marriage was breaking up. Every day while our stage manager drove us two-hundred miles or so to the next booking, I'd type a detailed description of last night -- what we did well, what we argued about, and a travelogue about the town, and comments from the people at the nightly party.

Recovering from the trip and the divorce, I sent my "car book" to a friend who said -- "Em, it's great,but ..." And that became rewrites, and another book. Then, my marriage to actor John Cullum, and then a play that got produced, and another book, big hopes because a famous agent loved it.The title and concept changed five times -- now it's been published, finally, as "Somebody, Woman of the Century." You can buy it, or read about it and my other five novels on Emily Frankel.com